In The Communist Takeover of Hangzhou, historian James Gao provides the first book-length re-examination of the CCP's military and political conquest of China since Kenneth Lieberthal published Revolution and Tradition in Tientsin in 1980. This reappraisal comes none too soon, since there has been a revolution in the last 24 years in the quantity and quality of primary sources available on the early years of the PRC. Recently published memoirs, newly opened government archives, and interviews with former CCP cadres all contribute to Gao's richer and more nuanced portrayal of this key period in the Chinese Communist revolution.

Gao argues that the CCP's moderation in the early 1950s was not the typical cooling of utopian fervour that most revolutionaries have experienced upon seizing power. He also disagrees with scholars who have characterized the early 1950s as a sharp break from the radicalism that both preceded and followed it. Instead, Gao maintains that this period represents a strategic pause in the Chinese Communist Revolution, engineered by opportunistic Party leaders in order to consolidate their new hold on power. While this focus on the problems of regime consolidation may not be new, Gao's emphasis on the cultural aspects of this process is innovative. He argues that one of the most important facets of the Chinese Communists' consolidation of power was their effort to incorporate elements of urban elite culture into the rural revolutionary culture of the wartime base areas, and thereby transcend the limitations of their earlier political practices.